When students study and work overseas, boundaries collapse. And lives expand.
By Elaine McArdle
Jay Cinq-Mars, an honors major in history and Spanish, spent months at Northeastern studying the Soviet Union’s espionage efforts during the Spanish Civil War.
But it wasn’t until this past spring, when he traveled to the Spanish city of Salamanca, that his understanding really took off. The middler got to pore through dozens of boxes of original documents, and even lived with the family of a Spanish policeman, who spent hours explaining the complicated history of Spain’s various police forces.
"I learned more Spanish history and life skills in six weeks there than I would have in two years in a classroom," says Cinq-Mars, who plans to become a college history professor. Not to mention: "My Spanish-language ability just exploded over there."
With the help of his Northeastern mentors, associate history professor Jeffrey Burds and modern languages professor Stephen Sadow, Cinq-Mars created his own study program in Spain, funded by a provost’s grant for undergraduate research. It turned into something so invaluable, he says, he can’t wait to get back. He also plans to live in Russia next year to further his minor in Russian and Eastern European studies.
Northeastern is known internationally as a hotbed of experiential-learning opportunities—with an infinite number of experiences to choose from, including the chance to make your own. It’s no surprise this variety and diversity extend to international experiences as well.
Students can design their own independent research abroad, as Cinq-Mars did. Participate in other kinds of study abroad. Volunteer for a worthy cause, an option known as service learning. Or mix-and-match these experiences as they see fit. There is also a program known as Dialogue of Civilizations, through which students live in a foreign country and take courses on local politics and economics.
Intercultural immersion is vital for young people today, university officials believe. "It’s become trite to say it, but the world truly is flat," explains senior director of employer relations Fred Hoskins. "It’s increasingly important for people in the United States to think globally, to be aware of other cultures, and to be comfortable in other parts of the world."
In fact, says James Stellar, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, encouraging students to live and study in other countries is the university’s "social responsibility."
"It’s self-evident," Stellar says, "that, with America as a world leader, we have to have a populace that understands the world. There’s no better way to do that in a college population than by having an abroad component."
Sadow, who helped Cinq-Mars get the research grant that sent him to Spain, sees students come back from time spent abroad with new reserves of intellectual and emotional maturity.
"Students quickly learn to be more self-reliant and more assertive," he says, "including asking for help when it’s needed. They quickly learn to adapt to the unspoken rules that regulate life in the other country. They adapt to new schedules, new means of getting around, new currencies, new cuisines, new kinds of entertainment. They learn to deal with unfamiliar situations, occasional crises, and even culture shock."
As graduates, says Sadow, students who have been abroad "will find it easier to work with or manage colleagues who come from other cultures. They will be open to other points of view. Those who had business experience in the other country might have contacts and opportunities for the future. If they attain a reasonable level of fluency in a foreign language, they will have significant advantages over, and earn more than, those who remain monolingual.
"Taken together," he says, "these skills help students become more flexible, more accepting of other ways of living, and more capable of problem solving."
The perfect blueprint for any career, in other words.
And any life.
"It really opened my eyes"
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Middler, human services major |
Growing up in Berkeley, California, Scarlett Trillia learned the value of ecoliteracy firsthand when her junior high school worked with famed restaurateur Alice Waters to create and grow an organic garden, then study—and eat—the fruits, vegetables, and grains it produced.
After this early foray into experiential learning, Trillia was determined to find a university that valued the approach. Choosing Northeastern offered her something else she wanted, too: access to service-oriented programs that give back to the communities in which they’re based.
So, for six weeks last summer, through the Dialogue of Civilizations program, the twenty-year-old lived in Mexico, took a Spanish-language immersion course, and studied the political, economic, and social conditions in which local human-services organizations operate. Adding to the service angle, Trillia and her sixteen fellow students volunteered at children’s organizations, to understand the real-world angle of what they were studying.
"It’s probably one of the most important things I’ve done since I came to Northeastern," says Trillia, who’s planning a career as a nonprofit-organization administrator. "It really opened my eyes. I’ve traveled a lot before. But to travel with structure and a goal—studying the language, staying with a local family—those are all things you wouldn’t get if you were traveling independently."
The Mexico program involves a week of cultural and language preparation in Boston, followed by three weeks in Mexico: living with a host family, taking courses, and doing volunteer work. Trillia, funded by a provost’s grant, was able to stay on an extra three weeks, to travel around the country and evaluate how the reality of ecotours stack up against how they’re promoted. She’s now writing a paper on what she witnessed.
"I traveled as if on a student budget," Trillia says. "I went to see what was available, what was being advertised, how the tours matched up with how they were being presented, and how Mexican tours match up with American companies."
Her unexpected experiences were among the most valuable, she says. Once, she and a companion found themselves in Oaxaca during the one-year anniversary of a teachers’ strike that had led to the deaths of a number of protesters.
She remembers, "The day before, we’d done an ecotour, and they said, ‘We can’t take you tomorrow. The Mexican people are thinking about citizens getting killed by police.’ They were like, ‘You Americans, you want to go hiking, but we’re going to take care of our own eminently important social issues.’"
Dialogue of Civilizations experiences are open to students in any major. In addition to the program in Mexico, there are programs in Egypt, Thailand, Northern Ireland, Australia, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Israel, among other sites. Most take place during the summer (a Niger program is available during the winter months). Students—who meet with local leaders and peers, and participate in lectures, site visits, and cultural events—receive eight credits by studying such themes as the environment, conflict resolution, politics and the economy, or communication.
For anyone worried about the cost of the Dialogues of Civilization program, Trillia has great news: You spend little, if any, more than you would if you were studying on campus.
"We paid one cost, and it covered everything, including airfare, the home-stay families we stayed with, and the cost of bus trips," says Trillia, who has just started a co-op doing fundraising for youth groups in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood. "It even paid for us to do horseback riding.
"I was amazed it worked out like that. It was a really, really well-designed program."
"Yes, this is my bag"
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Philosophy and religious studies major |
For Nick Fortier, witnessing the actual practice of Buddhism in Vietnam was a revelation.
"I get a kick out of people talking about Buddhism being the greatest religion," says Fortier, who spent more than three months studying and traveling in Vietnam, and plans to return next summer. "Sure, it’s easy to say when you’ve done nothing but read about it. I was one of those kids for a while. But seeing it, the human aspect of it, once you get there, for me was extremely cool."
Fortier came away with a deep respect for Buddhism. And he developed a connection to many people he met, including the monks with whom he lived for over a week at a monastery in Da Lat, in south-central Vietnam.
But seeing any institution up close, even a religion, has a way of replacing an idealized notion with the grittiness of truth. Shortly after arriving in Vietnam, Fortier saw a Buddhist father beat his young son, which surprised him—Buddhism is considered a nonviolent practice. He met a monk who owned expensive and sophisticated electronic equipment, dashing Fortier’s preconceptions about Buddhist asceticism. "I thought, This is a Buddhist monk?" he says. "Come to find out, he has two PhDs, one in Buddhism and one in political science."
On another occasion, Fortier was told by a monk to lie, albeit under circumstances involving someone’s safety. He learned, he explains, "that there are certain tenets of religion that people don’t necessarily live by all the time." It’s a lesson he says he deeply values.
Fortier went to study Buddhism in Vietnam with a certainty that, "yes, this is my bag," he says. "There’s a quote by Mark Twain that sums up how I feel: ‘I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.’ Because, in essence, there are certain things you learn only by doing and experiencing. You can read all you want about Buddhism, you can read texts on how to meditate, but until you go to where it is practiced, you won’t understand it."
His study-abroad program began with six weeks of language immersion, history, and cultural-studies courses. While in Vietnam, he lived with a local family in Ho Chi Minh City. He was there for the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon. He traveled to the site of the My Lai massacre and to the monastery of the monk who set himself on fire to protest the Vietnam War, an action captured in a much-published photograph that turned many Americans against the war.
"Overall, it was the single greatest history lesson I’ve ever gotten in my life," says Fortier, who in September began a master’s program in philosophy and aesthetics at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, with plans to become a college professor. "It was stuff I hadn’t heard of, or maybe had heard of but didn’t know much about." Upon his return, he wrote a thirty-five-page paper on his Vietnam experiences, focusing on his monastery stay, and his subsequent reflections on Buddhism.
Last year, he traveled to Nepal and Tibet, also great opportunities, he says.
"Experiencing things and having to fend for yourself while trying to learn and engage in the culture is, I feel, priceless," Fortier says.
"We can’t just have a bunch of people who know only how to take tests, especially with the world shrinking as it is."
"A whole different side of things"
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Senior, civil engineering major |
Katey Feeley is a co-op fanatic.
"I’ve loved all my co-ops," says the civil engineering major, who plans to study structural engineering at the graduate level. "I think co-ops in general just give you a whole different side of things.
"They motivate you to see that things you learn in the classroom might apply to the real world," Feeley continues. "But you also learn a whole new set of skills you can actually use when working."
Feeley’s most recent co-op is her favorite so far. Why? "I got to travel overseas," the Billerica, Massachusetts, native says. She spent two months at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, a consulting company in Oslo that researches offshore foundation systems, avalanches, landslides, and tsunamis.
As part of her co-op, Feeley worked at the International Centre for Geohazards, which researches natural hazards. She focused on submarine landslides, which can lead to tsunamis, examining the landslides’ causes and locations, as well as the kinds of tests and studies that have been performed on them to date.
Now back in Boston, she’s writing a paper on her findings. "It’s everything you’d want to know about submarine landslides," she says, with a bright laugh.
Feeley started her research in the United States before arriving at the institute, which employs scores of interns and volunteers from Norway and around the world. In Oslo, she lived in an apartment with another American student and a young woman employee of the institute. On the job, she analyzed soil parameters using statistical data, and helped her local mentor set up equipment.
The simple fact of living in a foreign country was itself a learning experience, she found, although, in many ways, Norway reminded her of Massachusetts.
"Norwegians can seem very cold and rude from the outside," explains Feeley, "but once you get to talk to them, they are very warm and inviting, and will do anything for you—kind of like New Englanders. I definitely liked learning a little bit of the language, and understanding the culture and the holidays they celebrate."
As Feeley applies to graduate schools—she has her sights set on Stanford or the University of California at Berkeley—she believes her co-ops will give her a substantial edge over other applicants, and a boost in academic preparation, too.
"The co-ops with working companies were great because I got to see what the work will be like," she says. "And I got paid. But the research really helped because now I know what grad school will be like."
"I knew I was addicted"
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Middler, cultural anthropology major |
"I knew even when applying to Northeastern that I’d want to do an international co-op at some point," says Abby McIntire.
Well, of course. Long before college, McIntire had filled her educational career with real-life learning. At just thirteen, she took a school trip to South Africa and Swaziland. It made her want to return to Africa, not as a tourist but as someone deeply involved in the community.
In high school, she volunteered with the Hopi Nation in Arizona, where she enjoyed her first home stay. "It was my first time being shown an insider’s view of a culture different from my own," she says. "And, though I didn’t put a name to it right then, I knew I was addicted."
After graduating from high school in 2004, McIntire took a gap year and traveled to a small village called Nsanfo in Ghana to teach English. While there, she worked with her home-stay father, Moses, to found a medical clinic that would serve more than seven hundred people who had previously had no access to health care.
She went back in 2006, working with her host father to have the clinic officially recognized by the Ghanaian government, which then placed a certified nurse on-site. AlKatie Feeley is a co-op fanatic.
"I’ve loved all my co-ops," says the civil engineering major, who plans to study structural engineering at the graduate level. "I think co-ops in general just give you a whole different side of things.
"They motivate you to see that things you learn in the classroom might apply to the real world," Feeley continues. "But you also learn a whole new set of skills you can actually use when working."
Feeley’s most recent co-op is her favorite so far. Why? "I got to travel overseas," the Billerica, Massachusetts, native says. She spent two months at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, a consulting company in Oslo that researches offshore foundation systems, avalanches, landslides, and tsunamis.
As part of her co-op, Feeley worked at the International Centre for Geohazards, which researches natural hazards. She focused on submarine landslides, which can lead to tsunamis, examining the landslides’ causes and locations, as well as the kinds of tests and studies that have been performed on them to date.
Now back in Boston, she’s writing a paper on her findings. "It’s everything you’d want to know about submarine landslides," she says, with a bright laugh.
Feeley started her research in the United States before arriving at the institute, which employs scores of interns and volunteers from Norway and around the world. In Oslo, she lived in an apartment with another American student and a young woman employee of the institute. On the job, she analyzed soil parameters using statistical data, and helped her local mentor set up equipment.
The simple fact of living in a foreign country was itself a learning experience, she found, although, in many ways, Norway reminded her of Massachusetts.
"Norwegians can seem very cold and rude from the outside," explains Feeley, "but once you get to talk to them, they are very warm and inviting, and will do anything for you—kind of like New Englanders. I definitely liked learning a little bit of the language, and understanding the culture and the holidays they celebrate."
As Feeley applies to graduate schools—she has her sights set on Stanford or the University of California at Berkeley—she believes her co-ops will give her a substantial edge over other applicants, and a boost in academic preparation, too.
"The co-ops with working companies were great because I got to see what the work will be like," she says. "And I got paid. But the research really helped because now I know what grad school will be like."though McIntire’s interest is cultural anthropology, not medicine, she studied midwifery while there and became a certified birth assistant to help with patients.
At Northeastern, McIntire searched for a way to return to Nsanfo on a co-op. With the help of her co-op coordinator and two members of the international
co-op office, she returned to Ghana in July as her own employer (her work is being monitored and evaluated by a Ghanaian friend).
On her co-op, McIntire manages the clinic’s budget—bolstered by the $5,000 she just raised, adding to the $2,000 she collected earlier—and works to add a new building, which was scheduled for completion by November. That’s the month, by the way, she was slated to be honored as "Queen Mother of Nsanfo" for her work with the clinic.
In all, McIntire will spend about eleven months in Ghana, including a semester taking African studies courses at the University of Cape Coast.
So many aspects of her experience have been unforgettable, she says. Like a birthday celebration that coincided with the funeral ritual for several recently departed villagers.
First came a dinner with her extended host family that involved a speech given by Moses, libations poured for the gods, and a big communal bowl of fufu—"mashed cassava and plantain, a blob with the consistency of Play-Doh," McIntire explains—and fish stew. Later on, she says, "my friends and I went swimming at sunset in the village swimming hole, then ended the evening with dancing in the center of town, led by the funeral deejay."
McIntire is currently connecting her two worlds by coordinating a volunteer visit by a Northeastern grad student in nursing at the clinic this winter. Undergrad nursing students are also welcome to volunteer at the clinic for a full-credit co-op.
"I am especially excited for this aspect of my co-op," McIntire says. "To introduce someone who is new to this place and make her feel welcomed and comfortable."
Though she hasn’t yet decided on a career path, McIntire says she may want to lead students on semester-abroad programs, similar to the ones that have shaped her life.
"I have always been motivated to learn by knowing exactly how something can be applied in real life," she says. "It is why I chose Northeastern. Though attending classes and learning the facts and the history are vital, I’ve also found that firsthand experience is just as important. If not more so."
"Beyond anything I ever did in the classroom"
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Middler, history and Spanish major, honors student |
When Jay Cinq-Mars arrived in Salamanca, Spain, last April and began sifting through documents at the Archivo General de la Guerra Civil Española, he knew he’d been well guided during the two semesters he spent getting ready for this moment.
Working with three Northeastern offices—the history and modern languages departments, and the honors program—Cinq-Mars had developed a research project on the Spanish Civil War, which he got funded through a provost’s grant. The project would chart the transfer of men from an established Spanish police force to a newly created arm of the KGB, headed by a Soviet master spy. Throughout the three weeks he was in Salamanca, Cinq-Mars immersed himself in his work, digging into boxes, copying more than five thousand documents.
A fortuitous meeting with a young Spanish university student led to even more information. After the student invited Cinq-Mars to stay with his family for a week, the American was thrilled to find his new friend’s father was a member of the Spanish national police—a group whose predecessor had been created at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, and whose members had joined the Soviet police force Cinq-Mars was studying. The police veteran and Cinq-Mars spent hours discussing these organizations’ complex roots.
"He gave me the history of the police force and described how it is structured," says Cinq-Mars. "So he was a great help, in addition to being a great friend and putting up with me for a week."
Cinq-Mars, who plans to begin a PhD program in Russian history, perhaps at Northeastern, as soon as his undergraduate studies are complete, knows the benefits of firsthand research.
"Experiential learning like this is terrific for my field," he says.
While in Spain, Cinq-Mars spent six weeks traveling to many of the country’s most beautiful cities: Madrid, Córdoba, Seville. When he returned to Salamanca to continue his research, he experienced a frustrating but not uncommon twist: Three days before he was supposed to return to the United States, he discovered another cache of invaluable documents.
"I’m told it’s a typical archival experience—the best is always saved for last," says Cinq-Mars, who was able to extend his visit a bit to explore his find.
Now back at Northeastern, he’s writing a junior/senior honors thesis on why Stalin got involved in the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet leader sent not only munitions and materiel to the Republican soldiers but also agents, including that master spy who created the new police force.
Cinq-Mars says the war then became a training ground for the Soviet secret police, who developed a number of tactics they used later during purges at home.
"It’s absolutely fascinating," the young historian says.
Elaine McArdle is a freelance writer who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the Spring issue, she profiled Northeastern’s first class of Torch Scholars.